


the people who stand by you without flinching

by sky_reid



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Family, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I'm winging it, Memories, No Plot/Plotless, TECHNICALLY there's implied and/or imminent character death, for all that i'm aware of, i have literally not used a single name in this idk why i make experiments like this idk, i haven't read the book, idk what the fuck i wrote it's just family thoughts and memories and shit, it's actually not as sad as i'm making it sound i swear, only seen the movie, so you know, thinky thoughts, what did i do don't shoot me mims
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 21:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sky_reid/pseuds/sky_reid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first and last of family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the people who stand by you without flinching

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eruannalle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eruannalle/gifts).



> title from the quote _when everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching -- they are your family_ (jim butcher)
> 
> rated for mature themes and some mild language
> 
> first time writing for this fandom i had too many feels and they had to go somEWHERE
> 
> written as a ny's gift for my lovely best friend who wanted family feels in completely different fandoms and no angst and clearly i totes listened to her (i'm sorry????)

 

_The People Who Stand by You_

_Without Flinching_

 

The first thing he remembers is the phone call. It was just after 2am and he had just fallen asleep, the threat of nightmares keeping his eyes glued to the TV screen. He woke up instantly, half-expecting to be greeted by a fistfull of shrapnel in the face, his brain still in the battlefield mode. He didn't check who was calling – another habit he'd picked up overseas – just answered in a gruff voice, his body automatically righting itself, ready for orders. The soft female voice somewhat obscured by static calmly informed him that his wife is in premature labour and his presence will be required at the hospital as soon as possible. He didn't need to be told twice, already on his feet and getting dressed by the time he hung up, cursing under his breath that she insisted on continuing to work for as long as possible, cursing that he wasn't already with her, cursing that she was seven whole weeks away from her due date. He didn't let the fear for her well-being, for their still unborn child's well-being, touch him – he'd long learned that fear makes people stupid.

 

He drove to the hospital, a half-hour trip that he covered in 20 minutes, speeding and running lights left and right. Mostly he remembers this one moment as he turned a left, a completely nondescript street, a broken streetlight and a thought – _what if they die and I don't make it in time?_ , a second's worth of panic seizing him, tires screeching. Everything else is a blur of dark night and city lights.

 

The hospital was so light in contrast, white neons lining the ceiling, white walls all around him, white floor under his feet, white coats rushing past. He grabbed the first person he could reach, asked for the maternity ward and sprinted up the stairs, too impatient to wait for an elevator. He must have seemed like a lunatic, sprinting down empty hallways, shouting her name. A nurse approached him carefully, as if scared of what he might do, asked him who he was looking for. It turned out he'd just missed her, she was already getting a C-section. It was the longest hour of his life; he paced back and forth in the waiting room until he could swear the floor under him would bear permanent marks.

 

When the doctor first spoke to him, all he heard was _complications_ ; he still doesn't know how he managed to control himself to hear _handled_ , which only came a few sentences later. And then – _a son_. His heart beat faster and his fists clenched and his vision may have gone blurry with tears and they were alright, they were both alright, her and the baby, a boy, _his son_. He was walked to her room, he knows not how or by whom, but he must have been, because the next thing he knew, he was looking at her, tired-looking but awake, sitting upright in the hospital bed, and there he was, in an incubator, a see-through box keeping him still out of their reach, but he was there and he was alive, _his son_.

 

She said something, and he must have too, but he doesn't know what it was anymore and it doesn't matter. People were talking around him, she was talking, the two nurses were talking, the doctor was talking, but he could barely hear them. All he cared about right then was the tiny baby, too tiny, its hands and feet moving around slowly, weakly, a tube taped to its mouth. He put a hand slowly through one of the holes in the side of the incubator, touched the skinny arm with one finger, felt the soft, damp skin under it.

 

He swore then, he swore he would raise his son right, he would raise his son to be a good man.

 

**

 

The last thing— Well, it's not exactly the last thing, because the last thing he knows is momentary searing pain, and the last thing he feels is hope that, of all things, that righteous bastard at least get the job done, and the last thing he thinks is how his dad is gonna hate it when the dog drools buckets on his legs as it starts sleeping in his bed, but the last thing he _remembers_ before everything goes black is that first drift, the first time he was in a jaeger, the first time he felt—

 

It was a fucking mark II, an ancient rust bucket decommissioned from battle and assigned to training, barely operational. They'd been training for months, physical fitness and stamina and navigation and technology and resourcefulness and whatever other bullshit the army could throw at them; none of those were any problem for them, they passed test after test, flying colours, top of their class, but then, he always knew they would. No, what he'd worried about back then was compatibility. Sure, they were family, but they weren't exactly a perfect one; he'd always felt a wall between them, a wall built of loneliness and guilt and blame and regret. Only child of a single, military parent that he was, he moved a lot, he changed schools and schedules and friends, and the one constant in his life was, had always been, his father, the same father who was to blame for the mess that was his life. He resented his father for his job and his dedication and for leaving him home alone for hours and for not being able to look him in the eye and apologize; and then he felt guilty for hating the only family he still had.

 

And he would carry all that into the drift. He knew he would, there was no avoiding it, his father would be in his head soon enough and see it all for himself, but he still wanted to hide it. They'd just gotten the damn dog and they were starting to get closer inasmuch as two people like them could get closer and yeah, he'd always kind of wished they were a bit better at communication but that didn't mean he wanted to bare all his thoughts for his father to see. If there were a way to wrap some thoughts and memories tight and lock them in a box and bury it somewhere deep down in his mind, he'd do it in a heartbeat, but there wasn't and he couldn't do a damn thing to hide the things he never wanted to tell.

 

In all brutal honesty, he dreaded the drift not because of what he would leave in it, but what he would find there. His own thoughts he knew well, hundreds of times he imagined the satisfaction of telling his father every last thing he wanted to say and hundreds of times he felt the guilt of the words that never even left his mouth. The real fear didn't lie in what he knew, though, it was in the unknown, in how his father felt about him, what he thought.

 

He'd always thought that, deep down, what everyone feared most was being a disappointment to their parents. If there was one thing he'd never ever want to know, it was that his father was disappointed in him. All their differences notwithstanding, he knew he could be difficult and he knew his father tried his best and no matter what he told the world – or himself – he still wanted his father's approval. He still wanted to be the good man his father promised he'd make him into back when he was still a snot-nosed kid who couldn't make the baseball team.

 

That first real drift, the first time he wasn't in a simulator, but in a real, however old, jaeger, with a real, however old, partner, it was everything and it was nothing like what he'd expected. The memories came rushing to him, his and not his and some that he couldn't tell – his first day at school, dad's pathetic attempts at baking, the first time he kissed a girl, the first time he got high, enlisting the army, picking the dog, his mother smiling, prettier than in any picture he'd ever seen, a war he didn't recognize, an accident he didn't remember, places and faces he didn't know, him and dad in the park, dad visiting him in the training barracks, him and dad in compatibility testing; the overwhelming mix of feelings that came with the pictures, an underlying sense of exhilaration at finally, _finally—_

 

And above it all, a leitmotif of the jumbled slideshow, a sense of pride that did not, could not have, come from him.

 

All in all, it's not the worst memory to die to.

 

**

 

The first thing she remembers is a red shoe. She remembers she was fastening it together, a bit too loosely as it turned out, when the sirens went off. Her mother grabbed her coat and tucked her into it, held her by the hand and led her briskly towards the nearest shelter. But they were too late.

 

She remembers the terrible noise of the first buildings crashing down, people looking around in fear, asking for directions to a shelter. And then she saw it, its ugly head peaking out from behind a skyscraper, its skin like a toad's, maybe a shade lighter. She didn't get it at first, she was only a child, she didn't know what was going on, but then buildings around them started falling and people were suddenly running, screaming, pushing each other out of the way; she tried to hold on to her mother's hand, but she couldn't keep up and soon she was holding on to thin air. She remembers she was scared, she was petrified, and she started running too, because it seemed like a good idea; she didn't know where she was going, just that she wanted to get as far away from that _thing_ as possible and that she wanted her mother to be back with her.

 

The streets were empty and covered in rubble and she didn't recognize the part of town she was in, but she could still hear and see the kaiju and she kept running, barely seeing anything through the tears. Her feet felt heavy and her shoes too big and she was _tired_ , so tired, and she didn't want to keep running, but she did, until she found some dumpster in an alley and tried to hide. It's still the scariest moment of her life, that second of quiet before the monster came for her, the anticipation and not knowing almost worse than the kaiju's relentless destruction all around her. And then it was over, not gradually with the noise slowly growing quieter and dissipating, but as suddenly as it had begin, everything stopping altogether. It took her a minute to realize, to stand up and walk out of the alley she was hiding in, picking up the shoe she lost on the way there.

 

The way she remembers it, it was literally a knight in shining armour that saved her; what an armour it was and what a knight too. It's silly and it can't be true, it must have been a trick of the light, she knows that now, but when he got out of the jaeger, standing on top of it, way up in the sky where he was barely more than a stick figure, she could've sworn he was glowing, a golden light surrounding him like a halo. She didn't think he saw, didn't think he could, didn't think he'd care, her until he smiled, just a small smile, gentle and soft, and maybe she even imagined it, but it, more than the dead body of the monster, more than the giant jaeger standing in front of her, made her feel safe.

 

It still does.

 

**

 

The last thing he remembers is a little girl in a blue coat, black socks on her feet and only one red shoe, the other in her hands. She was looking up at him with wide eyes and parted lips and tear-stained cheeks and he knew from the moment he laid eyes on her that she was special, that little girl standing in the middle of what was left of her city. It was sad coincidence that the kaiju attack that brought them together was the same one that left her alone in the world. He doesn't feel good about it per se, but he can't not be grateful, not when it gave him her.

 

He's seen her grow up, followed her every step. She's no longer a scared little girl, easily impressed with a giant robot barely functioning, its systems shutting down, its shell damaged beyond repair; she's a young woman piloting a giant robot of her own, fighting against the very thing that once scared her so, a warrior but not a soldier, headstrong and emotion-driven but respectful and rational. She's everything he could have ever hoped she would be and more.

 

He's taught her everything he knows, from English to sewing to fighting for what is right. He's given her everything he had and in return she has given him a family he never thought he'd have. He wishes, selfishly, he had more time with her, time to see her complete the mission, see the satisfied, proud smile on her face, time for her to tell him what he already knows about her and the kid he hopes will get her to safety, time to tell her how proud he is of her. He wishes, selfishly, that she will remember him, that there will be days when she wakes up and still looks for him on instinct, that she will wear one of his pins on her jacket, run her fingers over it absently every now and then. He wishes, selfishly, that he could go right back to the start, live through it all again, have her skinny arms wrap around his neck and tell him something in a language he still doesn't understand, have her need him again. He wishes, selfishly, for more than he's already been given.

 

Whatever regrets he may have now, not that there are many, whatever mistakes he's made, it's too late to change anything. He's not sure if he would change anything if he could anyway because whatever it was he did, right or wrong, it's brought him here, it's given him the daughter he loves, it's given him the life he's had, happier than he could have hoped for. He thinks he's given her the same.

 

When he clenches his fist, bracing for the impact he knows is coming, it's not with fear that he waits, it's not with regret; it's with the memory of a child's hand in his, small cold fingers weaving between his, the memory of a child's round face lighting up at his smile, a blue coat and dusty red shoes.

 

And it's easy then, to be at peace.

**Author's Note:**

> happy new year, friend, i hope this isn't the last one you read lmao


End file.
